Newcastle Review

In front of an almost capacity crowd Gloucester showed their worst form of the season, missing tackles at will and seemingly still worn out from their Powergen Cup celebrations the week before.

A win with a bonus point would secure Gloucester a playoff place, a loss unthinkable. Newcastle, bottom of the table, knew that an unlikely victory would life them of the bottom and greatly improve their chances of being replaced by the division 1 champions.

Melville made a couple of changes from the cup winning side, with lineout specialist Mark Cornwell returning after a stomach bug ruled him out of the Twickenham match. Peter Buxton was added to the squad because of Junior Paramore's injury which may rule him out for a further 2 weeks, and Henry Paul was replaced in the centres by Robert Todd.

It was maybe this that had a detrimental effect on Gloucester's game. The formula which has worked so well in recent games seemed to lack any real substance, with the ball often being held up in the centres and the powerful Newcastle defence often drove Gloucester backwards due to the Falcons committing two or three men to every tackle with Gloucester lacking the forward support.

The team looked tired and this lack of support from the forwards meant there was no flow to the Gloucester game and Newcastle always looked the favourites to take the lead. They did so through a Joe Shaw try. Jamie Noon broke through and some terrible tackling from Gloucester allowed the ball to be easily offloaded after drawing the man and Newcastle were always going get the five. However unlike the Jonny Wilkinson we have seen of late in the Six Nations, he missed the conversion.

Newcastle still pressed forward as the Gloucester crowd died down. The extended their lead to 8 points when Jonny Wilkinson made no mistake with a penalty given after the Gloucester forwards lazily dived in to the rucks.

The came the controversy of the match. It's an unwritten rule that there has to be some when Gloucester play Newcastle at Castle Grim and for the second time in two seasons both teams had a player sent off due to fighting.

As Gloucester drove forward down the wing, Chris Fortey stamped on a Newcastle players head who had been caught at the bottom of the ruck. Some abuse followed and Stuart Grimes started things moving with a head butt. A full ruckus started and there were punches thrown for Newcastle players that went unpunished, but a card for each team was probably fair enough.

Usually the extra space would benefit a Gloucester team that has run teams ragged of late on the dry pitches, but because of Gloucester's poor tackling it seemed to benefit Newcastle more. Olivier Azam had to come on to the pitch to hook and unfortunately James Forrester had to be removed. It always seems harsh when a player is substituted because one of his team mates has done wrong.

Now eight-nil is a score that we can always be confident of coming back from, but things started to look bad when Newcastle scored their second try on 36 minutes. Things weren't helped by Ludo surprisingly missing three first half penalties, but we can let him off as his time was to come later. Falcon's second was again scored after the Gloucester defence had been breached. Tom May broke through with ease, and passed to Mark Mayerhofler who jogged in under the posts allowing Wilkinson the easy conversion. The teams went in at half time with Newcastle 15-0 up to both teams, and the supporters, surprise.

For Gloucester to fight back they would have needed to score early on in the second period, but they failed to do so. Newcastle again broke through but Gloucester just managed to hold up in defence and attempted and attack of their own, which went horribly wrong. After Newcastle had cleared Olivier Azam caught the ball and his quick lineout attempt was snatched by Mark Andrews who took off down the wing. glosrfc.com man of the match Thinus Delport did all he could to stop him, and it seemed that he did with a brilliant tackle and it seemed that Andrews knocked the ball on. In fact as clear as day from where I was stood it was knocked on but the referee ruled otherwise, scrum half Grindall picking up to score. Wilkinson again missed the conversion but 20-0, it looked extremely unlikely that there was any chance of a Gloucester comeback.

But comeback we did. It wasn't until 55 minutes that we got our first points on the board, when Ludo kicked a penalty to narrow the gap to 17 points. As Gloucester began to look like the side

we know and love the crowd started to get up. Gloucester surged forward with attack after attack but still lacked something until the calls of the crowd were answered when Henry Paul came on. As the surged forward he drew the men and made space for those around him, namely Andy Hazell who scored Gloucester's first try in the corner. Ludo missed the conversion and it still looked unlikely that Gloucester could get back in to it.

Those five points didn't mean much because just moments later Jonny Wilkinson slotted a penalty and even the Newcastle players must have thought that a win was on the cards. During this period Rob "Squeeky" Andrew did his best to cause some controversy after trying to get some fans in the grandstand removed for telling him to sit down. However their comments were correct as Andrew attempted to disrupt Marcel Garvey's quick lineout attempt.

Now the Gloucester players were really beginning to put their body's on the line, as they charged forward with a momentum unseen for the previous 60 minutes. Dougie Woodman scored Gloucester's second try after sustained pressure paid of and he stormed over like a buffalo on steroids. This time Ludo converted.

Soon after Gloucester were attacking again. Gloucester were rewarded with a penalty and looked to take it quick, but Henry Paul stormed over to Ludo to remind him that three points would not only bring them within a try but also assure Gloucester of a losers bonus.

A losers bonus? who wants one of them? With just minutes left the crowd really started to lift as Gloucester sent wave after wave of attack at the Newcastle line. However Newcastle defended well and managed to clear. When they then went forward they conceded a penalty and the referee told Ludo that there was still time for an attack, so he sent a massive spiral in to the corner. Any more stoppages would signal the end of the match and the ball went from wing to wing as Newcastle defended strongly. However it only seemed that a mistake would stop Gloucester scoring and a try was finally scored in the corner as the ball passed between Mercier, Paul, Simpson-Daniel and Terry Fanolua before Thinus Delport steamed down the wing to score.

The Gloucester fans went wild with delight but for now it was only a draw. If the conversion went over then Gloucester would complete a fantastic comeback. The crowd went silent and Ludo stepped forward with brilliant resolve to slot the kick.

The jubilant supporters flooded the pitch to cheer on the cup winning side that had defended their two year home unbeaten record.

Final Score: Gloucester 25-23 Newcastle

Attendance 10,404